


golden

by chocoprompt



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, F/M, Fluff, pretty much glimmer and glimbow centric, there’s also catradora in the bg!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25637839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocoprompt/pseuds/chocoprompt
Summary: Glimmer and Bow unintentionally adopt a dragon, Glimmer finds herself mirrored in someone and the best friends squad explore a new planet.Not exactly in that order.
Relationships: Adora & Bow & Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	golden

**Author's Note:**

> so!! glimbow has pretty much taken over my life. this was supposed to be a short story about them finding a dragon and adopting it and it escalated into... this. i just love glimmer’s character a lot and i decided to play around and explore it :’) 
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading and enjoy!!

A quick summary on everything going on would be: Glimmer is tired, Bow is trying to get a signal by climbing a tree, Adora and Catra are lost somewhere in the planet and there’s a small dragon with blue and green scales — its eyes a very bright light green — in front of them looking at Glimmer with lost eyes.

The story of how they got here is the next one: they are in their space-trip to visit and help more planets after Prime Horde’s defeat, and this one is simply the next — and last — one on their ‘list’ — read: the next one they’d detected in the spaceship. The planet’s name was unknown even to the ship, which had made Entrapta all the more eager at the precept of checking out another planet. 

The excitement had easily worn down when, as soon as they had successfully landed, Entrapta’s machines hadn’t been able to locate _anything_ apart from creatures. Still, they’d decided to explore a little — even if there are not any people, there must’ve been something that had been left behind. Entrapta had preferred to stay back in the ship, claiming that she wanted to make some improvements in Darla’s sensors. 

As far as they had seen, though, Entrapta had been right: the planet was absolutely inhabited except for creatures, which varies from frog-spiders to hippo-crocodiles — you’d rather not know about those — and, as it happens to be, dragons. There’s also very little water and the two suns never stop shining brightly. 

All in all, it could be a lot worse. The atmosphere is similar to Etheria’s, which means that they can explore without the spacesuits on, and the creatures aren’t hostile. To be fair, they seem always on the verge of collapse, apart from the little dragon who seems very enthusiastic.

“Woah!”

“Bow!” Glimmer exclaims when she hears a loud ‘thumb’ and sees Bow in the ground. He groans, bringing a hand to his head, massaging slightly before standing to his feet. He sways a bit and as Glimmer goes to help him, the dragon whimpers. 

“I’m fine,” Bow says before his face splits into a wide grin. “Is that a dragon? It’s so cute!” He kneels down to touch the dragon and it hisses, moving swiftly and quickly behind Glimmer’s legs, its tail wrapping around her ankles. “Aw, it likes you, Glimmer!”

Glimmer sighs. “I don’t know why. Did you get anything?”

Bow grimaces, shaking his head. “Not really. This planet is just very weird and Adora hasn’t transformed into She-ra either, so we have no way of tracking her.”

“Ugh, this is just _great_.”

“Look at the bright side! At least you can teleport and we have a dragon.” He takes Glimmer by the shoulders and shakes her. Bow’s eyes could be holding stars inside from the way they're shining. Glimmer can’t help but adore them. 

_Not the time, Glimmer!_

“It isn’t even our dragon! We don’t even know if it has a mother or a family.” 

“Well, maybe we can start with that.” Bow proposes, smiling at Glimmer reassuringly and confidently. “We’ll find Catra and Adora, there’s absolutely no need to worry.”

Glimmer nods, smiling back. “Plus they have each other, right? What’s the worst that could go for them?”

“Exactly!” Bow kneels down, offering a hand to the dragon who smells it carefully before pushing at it. Bow smiles, running a hand through its head’s scales. “I think it likes me too!”

Glimmer bites her lip, powerless to fight the thought that comes to her head: _Of course it does, dummy. How could anyone see you and not like you?_

Bow stands up, looking very pleased with himself and Glimmer can’t help it: she kisses his cheek and Bow blushes. Glimmer laughs, taking his hand and tugging him along as the dragon flies to her right shoulder. “Come on, let’s start this way.”

Eventually, Glimmer gets tired of walking without a clear objective. There’s just something very odd about this planet but Glimmer can’t exactly say what. “There’s literally no one here. Maybe the Horde killed them all.”

Bow shakes his head. “There has to be something left from civilization, even if they were wiped away. I don’t know, ruins? Buildings on the verge of collapse? Even materials from the Horde’s ships. Certainly not only very dried forests.”

Glimmer touches one of the pretty much almost-dead trees near her, frowning slightly. “It’s like this place hasn’t seen rain in centuries.” The dragon whimpers and Glimmer looks at it sympathetically. She turns to Bow, determination humming through her veins. “We need to help this planet, Bow! Imagine the number of creatures that could be living here if they had the means to survive.”

Bow looks around, then up to the sky, before resting his eyes on her again. A thoughtful frown adorns his face. “I’m all in, Glimmer, but last time I checked, we don’t have the power to make rain.”

“We’ll figure something out! We always do.” Glimmer waves a hand dismissively.

Bow smiles softly at her. “Let’s focus on finding the others first and then we’ll think of a plan.”

* * *

They find Catra and Adora sometime later — Glimmer has given up in trying to guess the time long ago. It’s in the middle of a forest which has trees that create enough shade for them to be covered, thankfully, and after exchanging experiences — mainly Adora saying how dry this whole planet is and Glimmer explaining the dragon, who seems absolutely enamoured with Catra’s tail much to her annoyance — Glimmer settles them all to business. “We need to help this planet.”

“I agree.” Adora says easily and Catra groans.

“How are you planning on doing that? We don’t have the water princess’ help and we can’t just create rain!” Catra gestures to the sky. “There aren’t even clouds.”

They all fall silent at that for a few minutes, considering ideas before Bow breaks it when he asks tentatively, “But what if we could?” As they all turn to look at him, Bow continues. “Rain occurs when the sun heats up the earth long enough for the water to vaporize and form clouds, right? And it typically comes from the seas and lakes, but before the water is mixed to the sea, a portion of it comes from underground.” He explains, touching the ground. 

“So if there’s water underground on this planet, we have a chance.” Glimmer says, smiling widely. Bow nods at her, taking out his tracker.

“I’m gonna contact Entrapta and tell her to start thinking ways to improve our tech so we can check out if there’s water.” He says as he starts dialling Entrapta’s code.

“Bow! Hello there, give me just a minute to put this away… Okay, all done! Did you guys find anything?”

“Only dried ground and weird creatures.” Catra grumbles and Adora slaps her shoulder lightly. 

“We need your help, Entrapta.”

“Told you guys data never lies!” She says with a smile on her face. One of her ponytails brings her a small cupcake and she eats it in one bite.

“Entrapta, do you know if there’s any way for us to check if there’s water underground?”

“Water underground… I doubt it can have any living creatures in it but maybe if we analyze the ground’s components… but that would take way too long…” She’s mumbling under her breath and Glimmer smiles at her.

“We’ll make our way back to the ship now! We’ll see you in a few, okay?” 

Entrapta is too busy thinking to answer her and Bow hangs up, turning to Glimmer. “Any chance you can teleport us to the ship?”

“In small travels. I can teleport but my magic’s nearly as weak as it was before my mother…” Glimmer’s voice breaks a little and she coughs to cover it up. From the way her friends’ expressions shift, she didn’t do a great job at it. She looks down to the dragon resting its face on her knee, its big green eyes looking at her curiously. “Before I gained full power thanks to the stone.” She finishes. Everyone else stays quiet before Adora speaks up, a very loud — fake — cheerful tone to her voice.

“Anyway! Let’s just get as near to the ship as we can.”

Glimmer nods, standing up and dusting her hands off by clapping them. The dragon follows her and its tail wraps around Glimmer’s leg. Glimmer watches as it tries to fly but obviously can’t because Glimmer weights a lot more than it. She smiles down at it, brushing the weird behaviour off. “We’re gonna teleport, okay? Don’t get too nervous.”

“Oh man, I really hate teleporting.” Catra complains and Glimmer rolls her eyes.

“Well, you can walk to the ship if you prefer.” She says but doesn’t wait for Catra’s answer as she commands her magic to teleport them. She has the ship’s image in her mind, and if only they were back at Etheria, that would be more than enough. Alas, it’s not, and Glimmer lets out a breath as she teleports them all instantly as soon as they get to the furthest distance one teleportation can take them. Five teleports later, she’s breathing heavily and stops, crouching down and resting her hands on her knees. She closes her eyes, focusing on getting her breathing under control and not on the strong wave of dizziness. 

Glimmer feels a hand on her back, supportive and warm, and it helps to ground her. Bow kneels next to her, his other hand on her neck rubbing solid circles. After a few minutes, she feels okay enough to at least straighten up, swinging on her feet as she does so. Bow catches her with a hand on her elbow. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just a bit dizzy.” She replies, swallowing. Glimmer looks around: Catra is sitting down on the floor, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and Adora is looking at them both worriedly with one hand stroking behind one of Catra’s ears soothingly. The dragon — they should really put a name to it — is around Bow’s neck, seemingly content to nap around it. “Just tell me we’re close to the ship.”

“Uh… We are. Kinda.” Glimmer closes her eyes, breathing deeply as Bow continues talking. “It’s on sight. We just need to walk a little.”

Bow forces the dragon to move in favour of helping Glimmer walk. She gives him a weak smile in thanks when he puts her arm around his shoulder while his wraps around her waist. Adora seems to be doing something similar to Catra, and Glimmer feels a bit guilty — if the ride had hurt Glimmer, then she can’t even think how bad it must’ve been for Catra. “You pushed yourself too hard, didn’t you?” Bow murmurs and Glimmer grimaces.

“It seems so. The only times teleporting made me this dizzy are the very first times I did it.” They lapse into silence, Adora and Catra murmuring something to each other before Glimmer remembers: “The dragon’s following, isn’t it?”

“It is, Sparkles.” 

“You should name it.” Adora proposes and Glimmer nods, tilting her head to look at Bow questioningly. He smiles down at her.

“We’re almost at the ship. Let’s get there and we’ll brainstorm.”

When they get to the ship, it’s all ‘beeps’ from Emily and Entrapta screaming and running around, quickly exchanging greetings before going somewhere else. “You two should rest.” Adora tells Glimmer and Catra, who look at each other before huffing and looking away. Glimmer feels the exhaustion on her very bones and she lets out a deep sigh before nodding. 

She squeezes Bow’s hand and moves away from him towards the corridor. “Go help Entrapta. I can walk to our room.”

Bow nods. “I’ll check on you later.” He kisses her forehead. Glimmer blushes and turns to Catra, considering the possibility that they’d walk together, but quickly dismisses the idea when she sees Adora and her arguing. 

Glimmer starts leaving, the dragon right next to her. It’s looking at things with eyes full of curiosity and Glimmer wonders how old it is, exactly. How does age even work for dragons? She does a quick stop in the kitchen and gets a bowl of water for the dragon, who drinks it too fast. Glimmer’s surprised it hasn’t died due to dehydration.

The dragon flies to Glimmer’s shoulders afterwards and she gets to the improvised room she and Bow share a few minutes later. It’s very dull and simple and _everything’s_ grey— the walls, the wardrobe and even the table. Back when she had been rescued from Horde Prime’s ship, it had made her feel sick. Everything in space is either extraordinary or dull, and her skin had crawled the first days with the thought of sleeping in this place alone. 

Glimmer has always been used to things with color. It throws her off, to know there are places without them. Space is so scary to her.

The dragon licks her ankle and Glimmer yelps in surprise. It looks up at her, and Glimmer thinks she can see the concern in its eyes before sighing and giving it a little smile. She heads towards the cot, sitting down on one side of it and taking off her shoes. She doesn’t get much further than that because she lets herself fall down to it, shifts until her head is resting on Bow’s pillow — it smells faintly like him and it’s enough to help Glimmer relax. The uneasiness easily evaporating in favour of sleeping. Glimmer curls in on herself, closing her eyes and before sleep overtakes her, she feels the dragon’s scales on her hair.

* * *

Glimmer wakes up alone in bed. She sits up, yawning and rubbing her eyes, looking around and blinking when she sees the dragon sleeping peacefully in the middle of the pillow. She has always taken long to function after waking up so she spends a few minutes looking at it before finally finding enough strength to function. 

She brushes her teeth and takes a quick shower, changing into her second-pack of identical clothes she’s brought. Glimmer decides to go barefoot — the planet was so hot what with the never-ending sun and she appreciates a little cold on her feet. Plus, the ship’s clean, so what’s the worst that could happen?

Glimmer looks back at the dragon who’s still sleeping and decides to leave it there. She gets out of the room, styling her hair a little before she heads towards the ship’s kitchen.

“Morning,” Glimmer greets Catra, who’s sitting at a table and eating one of the rationed First Ones’ bags which Glimmer does not know what it is. Catra grumbles in response and Glimmer takes a few space-cookies and a glass of milk, sitting across from her. 

Two cookies later, Glimmer’s finally not-so-sleepy brain registers Catra’s tail moving back and forth — which Glimmer has come to interpret as anxiety — and she raises a brow. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I am, Sparkles.”

Glimmer sighs, biting down on the cookie. “I’m sorry about yesterday.” She admits and Catra freezes, frowning. She leans back on her chair, crossing her arms on top of the table and Glimmer continues. “It tired me out so much and I bet it was even worse for you.”

Glimmer is _trying._ Catra is important to Adora, who is important to Glimmer, and even if she and Catra tend to fight and stress each other _a lot_ , Glimmer is willing to push it all aside for the happiness of her friend. In fact, Glimmer already thinks of Catra as her friend, and she thinks that Catra returns the sentiment. She hopes so, anyway.

Glimmer thinks the reason she and Catra clash so much with each other is because they are very similar in too many aspects. “It’s okay,” Catra finally replies, but she doesn’t make eye-contact with Glimmer, instead glaring at her tail and forcing it to stop moving. “It’s not like you can help it. And it was necessary.”

Glimmer sighs, covering her cheek with her hand. “But we could find a way to make it better for you. If you’re willing to tell me what of it makes you feel bad.”

Catra stays quiet for a very long time and Glimmer waits with a patience she doesn’t know she has. It’s worth it when Catra talks, her voice strangely quiet — and Glimmer appreciates it because she knows better than anyone how hard it is to admit a weakness. “My tails and ears are very sensitive and they give me a lot of equilibrium. When we teleport it’s like… I’m losing them? Ugh, just forget it. I’m probably not making any sense.”

“No, no! I think I got it. Like you’re blind for a few seconds and it throws you off balance?”

“Kinda.” Catra frowns down at the table, one of her nails making symbols on it. Glimmer finishes her final cookie and stands up, gaining Catra’s attention. 

“I’ll think about ways to help it, but I feel like you’re just going to have to get used to it.”

“Probably.”

“Thanks for telling me,” _Thanks for trusting me._ “I’m gonna go find Entrapta and Bow. You coming?”

Catra hesitates and looks at the door, seemingly considering before she shakes her head. “I’m finding Adora. I need to… talk to her.” Glimmer nods and as she’s about to leave the room, Catra calls her name again. “Thank you.” She sounds embarrassed and Glimmer smiles at her before walking to back to her room — where the dragon is awake now and playing with their blanket.

After Glimmer has put her shoes on and is about to leave, the dragon follows her to the door. “Do you wanna come?” The dragon makes a happy sound and flaps its wings, and Glimmer laughs, waving with her hand and calling for her staff. “Come on.” 

In the control room, Glimmer only finds Emily.

“Hey, Emily,” Glimmer says to the bot, who beeps in greeting. “Where are Entrapta and Bow?”

“Glimmer!” Entrapta exclaims and Glimmer walks to the source, finding a purple ponytail coming out from a column full of wires. Glimmer yelps as Entrapta’s face suddenly comes visible and she steps aside, allowing Entrapta to come out. Her face is dirty but she looks more or less satisfied. “Oh! Hello there, little friend,” Entrapta says to the dragon, waving with her hair. It looks at her curiously and tries to follow her ponytails as they move around. 

“How’s it going?” 

“Very, very good! We came up with a very possible idea and Bow just went outside to try it out! Let’s go!” 

“Woah!” One of Entrapta’s ponytails wraps around Glimmer’s arm and she hurries after Entrapta, making her staff disappear. The dragon flies next to Glimmer as Entrapta takes out her recorder.

“As I was saying, we thought that if there was water underneath the ground we should be able to detect some movement from non-living things, especially considering that the living chances for a fish to live without seeing the sun are next to none. Which brings us the question: how do you detect things?”

“Uh.” Glimmer offers uselessly and Emily beeps again.

“Exactly, Emily! You create a wavelength! If it collapses with an actual thing it’s easily detectable, but water particles are small and we needed a more exact one. But! I borrowed some pieces from Darla and I think we have managed to do it with a very low wavelength. We only have one try, though. It takes a lot of energy.”

Emily beeps and Entrapta nods. “Yes, we’ve put some amplifiers to copy the signal and help it reach further.” She grins and hugs Emily. “Always thinking about everything, Emily!”

The bot makes another happy — clearly appreciative — noise and Glimmer can’t help but wonder how exactly Entrapta communicates with it. “Look! There’s Bow.” Entrapta yells and Glimmer smiles when she sees her boyfriend frowning down at his tracker and at some machine in front of him.

Bow looks up when he hears Entrapta and his expression easily changes into a soft smile upon seeing Glimmer. Bow kisses her shortly before turning to Entrapta, who is nodding to herself and doing final preparations. “I’m turning it on.”

“Wait! Connect this wire to it.” Entrapta says, one ponytail handing it to him. “It’s to boost the signal a bit more.” Glimmer follows the length of the wire with her eyes until it passes the ship’s entrance. Entrapta shakes her head. “It shouldn’t damage it. 45% chance.”

Bow breathes deeply before nodding. “Let’s do this.” He presses on the tracker, which makes a little sound and they all stay silent, looking at each other. Entrapta pouts when there’s a loud exploding noise from the ship, followed by a bit of smoke, but before she can so much as move, Bow grins and exclaims: “Yes!”

“Did it work?” Entrapta asks and they all look down to the tracker, which shows a map with an intermittent dot. 

Bow nods before announcing: “There’s water underground.”

Glimmer cheers and hugs him, laughing. “We have a chance to save this planet!”

“Guys? The ship’s burning!” They all turn around to see Catra and Adora running towards them and Entrapta’s proud smile is reduced to another pout.

“The automatic fire sensors should be already working but I’ll head back to the ship to fix it.”

Bow nods. “We’ll head to the dot. Will you be okay alone?”

Entrapta tilts her head to the side before her eyes widen in realization. “Oh! My data tells me you’re worried about me? I’ll be fine! I have Emily and Darla.” She smiles gratefully. “See you guys soon!” Entrapta waves at the dragon one last time before leaving with Emily.

“Let’s go!” Glimmer exclaims and Catra groans.

“Have you not learned a thing? We need a plan.”

“We’ve got very far without one.” Adora points out, chuckling. 

“Catra’s right.” Bow admits. Glimmer pouts but nods. “We need to think up ways to dig fast and to help the water flow.”

A few minutes and a lot of brushed off ideas later, the dragon scratches Glimmer’s leg. “What’s up?” She asks it, swallowing down her impatience. Glimmer frowns when the dragon starts flying towards the nearest forest and after a second, she follows it, ignoring the confused sounds her friends are making.

The dragon flies very smoothly, avoiding the branches and Glimmer runs under it, panting — it’s a lot faster than she thought it would be. She slows down when the dragon lands in front of an opening the forest has — it’s a clean portion of land with no trees or plants at all. Glimmer’s eyes widen when she sees creatures digging the ground easily and coming back up. “You’re a genius!” Glimmer grins to the dragon and hugs it carefully. The dragon licks Glimmer’s cheek with its very weird tongue, but she can’t find herself to complain about it. She laughs and looks back to check if the others are close or not — and easily spots Catra, who’s looking at her with her fangs bared.

“Princess! Care to explain what the fuck are you thinking?”

“Catra, look!” She points at the digging creatures and Catra blinks at them before everything clicks into mind.

“Oh.”

“I just don’t know how to communicate with them.” Glimmer says, frowning. Catra points to the dragon.

“You don’t, but maybe your little pet can.”

“It’s not my pet.” Glimmer rolls her eyes and looks down at the dragon, who has a smile on its face and is flapping its tail. She smiles softly at it.

“Sure it’s not.”

“Glimmer, Catra! Are you okay?!” 

“We’re fine, Adora. But you two need to look at this.” Catra says, moving to the side and opening one arm to the esplanade. “With this, we can build a solid plan.”

“Come on, little guy,” Glimmer says to the dragon. “Can you tell your… digging friends to help us?”

The dragon only looks up to her and blinks. Glimmer groans and Catra laughs from the big stone she’s resting on. “Are you sure it understands us?”

“It understood us before, didn’t it? Why else would it have taken us here?”

“Maybe there’s something here that it wants us to see,” Bow comments. Glimmer glares at him and walks past the dragon.

“Really, Bow? What else do you see here? There’s only sand!” Glimmer steps on the ground angrily and harshly, wincing when it’s rougher than she’d anticipated. 

All of a sudden, the ground starts shaking and Glimmer teleports next to Bow so she’s away from the centre of the little earthquake. The ground starts splitting apart and Glimmer’s mouth parts open when stairs start to appear. Bow’s tracker rings and he takes the call.

“Guys! I’m suddenly detecting a lot of new signals.” Entrapta reports. “This is a-ma-zing!”

“The people from this planet are hiding underground,” Adora breathes out, walking towards the entrance. Catra takes her arm, slowing her down.

“Slow down, tiger. It could be bats for all we know.”

“Entrapta, what was blocking us from sensing them?”

Entrapta rubs her chin with the end of her ponytail, thoughtful for a few seconds. “I mean, if their structure is so thick and made with a material that doesn’t allow detection, I suppose it must be possible.” She admits, frowning. “I will need to update _everything_ to make sure it doesn’t happen again!”

“It’s very weird.” Glimmer murmurs, looking at the entrance. 

“Is the ship still on fire, Entrapta?”

“Oh! Not, uh, really! I have it all under control! Good luck finding civilization!” She hangs up before Bow can get another word in. He shakes his head with an amused smile on his lips.

“Should we go in?” Adora asks, even if she already has one foot in. 

Bow nods. “That’s why we’re here.” Bow looks at Catra, shrugging. “We need to give it a shot.”. Adora grins and starts going down and Catra sighs and murmurs something under her breath but follows Adora anyway. Bow and Glimmer exchange a look and Glimmer searches for the dragon, frowning. 

“Where’s the dragon?”

“I don’t know but we can always look for it later. Let’s go,” Bow offers her a hand. Glimmer takes it and looks back one last time in vain before nodding at Bow and following the others underground.

The stairs are eternal and Glimmer grips Bow’s hand tighter as they descend, the hotness from the surface easily forgotten in favour of the coldness that comes from being away from the sun. The light from above is pretty much gone now and there are torches lighting up their path. “I think we’re near the end now,” Bow says and Glimmer squeezes his hand in answer. Bow passes the doorless gateway and as Glimmer follows, something makes a sound from her right. She feels something sharp touching her arm and Glimmer screams, startling Bow who yells too and she teleports them on instinct to the other side of the room. “Glimmer! What’s wrong?” Bow breathes out, taking an arrow and reaching for his bow.

“I don’t know!” Her voice’s shaking just like pretty much her whole body. “I felt something crawling up my arm.”

Suddenly, Glimmer hears a snort and she narrows her eyes blindly at the source. Bow yelps and Glimmer makes a ball of magic and throws it, lighting up the whole room. Catra and Adora come into view, Adora starting to laugh freely and Catra easily following her. Glimmer relaxes and glares at both of them, huffing.

“Come on, Sparkles, it was very funny,” Catra coughs and her voice turns very pitched in an attempt to imitate Glimmer. “Oh, no, Bow, there’s something on my arm! Please, save me!” Catra says dramatically before snorting again and Adora joins her, wiping her tears away with her thumb.

Glimmer blushes and glares harder. “Shut up! I don’t sound like that!” Glimmer looks at Bow and sees a little smile on his lips. She groans. “Are you two done?”

“Yes, yes. Sorry.” Adora says, taking a deep breath and straightening up again. Catra does the same as her, except for adding: “I’m not sorry.”

Glimmer sighs and turns around, examining the room they have entered. There are torches of blue fire illuminating but it’s clearly not enough for the whole room — and what catches Glimmer’s attention is a mural on the furthest wall. Bow starts to approach it, everyone else following and on guard, and Glimmer gasps as she sees it.

The mural must be centuries old. The lines are faded but they’re still a bit visible and they show people running away after mass destruction. The background seems to be dark-green and red even if the colors have mostly faded due to the pass of the years, but what really shocks Glimmer is the drawing of a Prime Hordak’s army. 

Adora’s the first one to speak and she sounds guilty. “Horde Prime must have attacked this planet very long ago and the survivors hid here to avoid being absolutely erased.”

“Don’t start blaming yourself for something that happened millennials ago, Adora.” Catra says quietly, taking Adora’s hand. Adora smiles at her gratefully, taking a deep breath.

“You’re right.” Adora replies and Glimmer smiles at her, knowing Adora is also trying her best to leave old habits behind. 

“But they’re very advanced,” Bow touches the mural carefully, rubbing a bit of very dried paint with his thumb and index finger. “They covered the planet in a very special type of metal which interferes with the signals. But to avoid being detected for so long…”

“I don’t think Prime gave another thought to this planet once it was taken care of.” Catra says quietly. She gazes at Glimmer and they both share a silent look. “He always destroyed without looking back.”

“And he took away their rain so they would die of dehydration.” Glimmer whispers, shivering. “He didn’t even bother to kill them.”

“He’s gone now.” Bow reminds them, turning to Glimmer. She nods, ignoring the cold feeling that has made way into her whole body. Glimmer wraps her arms around herself. “The one thing I don’t get is the mural. Why make a mural of this horrible day?”

“Because this way we’ll never forget what they did to us.” Glimmer’s eyes widen and she immediately summons her staff. She hears Bow taking out an arrow and Catra’s nails growing sharper but before Adora can call for her sword and turn into She-ra, the old woman holds her hands up in an attempt to pacify them. “Do not fright. I have no ill intentions towards you.”

“And we should believe you because?” Catra asks, not changing her stance. She’s ready to attack. 

The woman’s eyes look at each one of them but linger on Glimmer before she smiles. Glimmer feels a little more at ease but she still doesn’t let her staff go. “Is this the girl you have told me about, Drake?” 

Glimmer gasps as she sees the dragon resting on the woman’s shoulder. “There you are!”

The woman smiles and takes a step towards them. Bow puts his bow and arrow away but moves closer to Glimmer, who makes her staff disappear with a wave of her hand. From the corner of her eye, Glimmer sees Adora approaching them and Catra relaxing too but still looking at the woman — who has dark red hair, bright blue eyes and greenish skin — a bit suspiciously. “My name is Annette and I was one of the survivors of when the Horde attacked us.”

“One of the survivors?” Adora says, pure shock in her voice. “But that must’ve been so long ago.”

Annette smiles sadly and nods. “It was but I can still recall that day perfectly. This planet had always been peaceful — we lived a life in complete harmony with nature and animals, but they took all of that away when they landed one day. Those robots started setting fire to everything and attacking us but we used the forests to our advantage. They’ll always act in favor for those they deem worth it.”

“They have magic?” Glimmer asks, frowning. “But I didn’t feel it when I came in.”

“It was magic that made you find Drake,” Annette retorts, scratching the dragon’s head. “And it was magic that led you here, wasn’t it?”

Glimmer and Bow exchange a look because that’s not what happened at all. Catra makes a ‘she’s crazy’ signal with her finger and Adora shrugs. In all fairness, if Bright Moon had been attacked and they’d been forced to live underground, Glimmer would’ve driven herself to insanity too. Especially after so many years.

“I’m sorry, Annette,” Glimmer says as gently as she can. “But the forest’s magic is long gone.”

“What are you saying? That’s impossible.”

“Glimmer’s right, ma’am,” Adora repeats. “Prime Horde’s… attack developed into banning rain. The whole surface is completely dried.”

“We were trying to make it rain again before Drake took us here.” Bow finishes and the woman shakes her head, murmuring to herself.

“To completely drain the magic…”

“Anyway!” Glimmer interrupts her, clapping her hands. “Prime Horde is gone now, so you can all return to the surface and start taking care of the planet again!”

“Return to the surface?” Annette’s eyes become a little bit haunted and she reaches for Glimmer, gripping her arm tightly. Glimmer swallows and tries to shake her off to no real avail. “We can’t. We can’t.”

“Let her go.” Bow’s voice is commanding in a way it hardly ever is, and Glimmer watches as Annette comes back to herself and quickly does as Bow said. Glimmer rubs her arm carefully.

“I’m sorry,” Annette apologizes. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Is there anybody else from your... people that we can talk to?” Catra asks, crossing her arms. Annette nods.

“I’ll take you to them.” She starts walking and they all look at each other before following at a safe distance. Bow takes Glimmer’s hand again — she’s so very thankful because dark spaces tend to freak her out — and Drake flies from Annette’s shoulders to Glimmer’s, who smiles at him. 

The path is very creepy. The corridors they take are completely dark except for the torch that Annette is using and it keeps getting colder and colder. At one point, Glimmer can easily make out the sound of water flowing. She needlessly whispers so to Bow, who’s already taking out his tracker and marking down the point — a different one than the one they’d discovered. Glimmer also sees him sending a text to Entrapta, probably for the chance of having back-up should something happen, but there seems to be no connection here.

“We’re too far away from where we came from and the signal is too big so it’s probably blocked from leaving. Actually…” Bow murmurs before rising his voice so Annette can hear him. “How are you doing it to avoid being detected?”

“The planet’s magic.”

Before any of them can make any comment about that, Annette stops walking. Catra looks over Adora’s shoulder. “Why’re we stopping?”

“We are here.” Annette touches the blue wall and it opens on her command, pushing the stone away. Glimmer hears people laughing and Drake flies through the door after Annette passes. Bow doesn’t let go of Glimmer’s hand when they follow, and Glimmer blinks at the view in front of them — there must be around fifty people here. There’s a fire in the middle of the cave and cots that seem to be very, very old. Most of them have a lot of holes. As for the people, they all look the same: extremely pale for the continuous lack of sun and there don’t seem to be anyone over sixty years old except for Annette. The adults look at the four of them suspiciously, and this is probably always the hardest part to do in their travels: explain how they’re the good guys to people who have never heard of them.

Back in Etheria, people always trusted them, especially after learning that Adora was She-ra. After their first return from space, there was a lot of mistrust, but they got over it by defeating the Horde and setting free the Heart of Etheria. These people, though, have no reason to trust them. 

Doesn’t mean they won’t give it a shot. “Hello, everyone,” Glimmer starts, gaining the attention of every person on the room, even the children. They’re looking curiously at all of them. “We are from a planet named Etheria and we defeated Horde Prime a few months ago.” 

“We know the Horde has damaged your people a lot but you can live freely on the surface now.” Adora takes over her and stands next to her, tall and proud as ever. “Your planet needs to be taken care of and we’ll help you in as much as we can.”

“Why should we believe you?” A man asks, narrowing his eyes. Apart from being very skinny, all of them have blue eyes and very black hair, their skin a very light green. They are very much like Annette, except for the hair. Glimmer feels sick knowing this is all because of the conditions they’ve been living in.

“You’ll have to take the risk. After restoring our planet’s magic, we established a new mission to help as many more planets as we could.” Bow replies, talking calmly and unfaced. He makes a wonderful leader.

_And he would make an incredible King._ Glimmer smiles to herself at the thought.

“It’s our duty as She-ra and the saviours of the universe.” Adora concludes, covering her heart with one hand. 

“How do you think you can help us?”

“We’ll help you recover your home,” Glimmer responds, standing tall. “Your children deserve to live in the peaceful universe that we have created. They deserve a life where they can grow under the sun, play games on lakes and mess around with the harmless creatures of your planet. It can become alive again if you’ll give it a chance.”

“Will you really refuse to give these people you hardly know even the benefit of the doubt? The surface is _not_ safe.” Annette says and Glimmer picks up a desperate tone underneath her words. 

“You have no way to assure that,” Catra counters quietly. “You’ve been hiding here for what, centuries? You can’t possibly know what is out there.”

Everyone quiets after her words, considering their options, and it’s one of the children who breaks it. “I wanna play in the water!”

Glimmer smiles at her. “We’ll make it possible for you.”

“You promise?”

Glimmer offers the girl her pinky and her blue eyes shine with wonder before she walks towards her and shakes it. “Pinky promise.”

“We’ll do it.” The girl’s father says after a moment, putting a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. Glimmer nods, smiling gratefully.

“We won’t fail you.” Adora affirms and the father nods.

After that, most of the other people end up agreeing, and it’s good enough for Glimmer. As the children excitedly take up all of Adora’s and Catra’s attention with the promise of giving them a tour, Bow takes Glimmer to the side of the cave, away from prying ears. “Do you remember what Annette said about the magic?”

“About how it was protecting them from the Horde?” 

“Exactly. What if it actually is?”

Glimmer frowns, considering. “So the planet’s magic prioritized helping the people over allowing it to stay alive. The magic has no mind of its own, though — it shouldn’t have lasted for this long or even known what to do. It needs someone to channel it.” Glimmer’s eyes widen and she scans the room. “Annette.”

“I don’t see her?” 

Glimmer claps her hands. “I’ve got an idea of where she can be.” 

As Glimmer expected, Annette is in the room with the mural. It’s only illuminated with the blue torches now and Glimmer resists her natural urge to brighten.

“Annette?”

“I’ve been watching over these people since the first day they attacked us.” Annette starts and Glimmer swallows, not moving from her spot. There’s a coldness to her voice that wasn’t there before. “I took care of them, I helped them hide here from danger, from everyone — because you can only trust those who you have grown up with. You can only trust completely your own people.”

“That’s not true,” Bow says, crossing his arms. He sounds fierce. “Trust shouldn’t be categorized like that because every person is different.”

Annette ignores him. “And I took you to them, but I do not understand why I did it myself. And they chose you. They still chose you over everything they know. Chose you over me.” 

“You don’t get to choose who the others trust or love. It’s a hard lesson to learn and I know it can hurt a lot to be turned down like all you’ve done is for nothing,” Glimmer says, her voice softening. She steels herself before continuing. “But maybe you’re in the wrong side and this is just a sign that you need to think again and be the one who changes before you make an enormous mistake that’ll hurt everyone even more. I think you took us there because you know, deep down, what needs to be done.”

Glimmer pretends that Bow’s eyes aren’t on her as she approaches Annette and puts a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done all you could for your people as a good leader should, but now it’s time to let go. The planet needs its magic back.”

Annette turns around, her blue eyes glassy. She looks a lot older than she did a few hours ago and Glimmer’s eyes fill with sympathy. Annette cups Glimmer’s cheek with one hand, her wrinkled thumb caressing her skin. “You’re right.” Annette breathes out after a minute, a mere whisper but powerful enough to move mountains. Annette closes her eyes, and suddenly, her skin starts glowing. 

Glimmer takes a step back, watching with widened eyes as Annette’s form starts becoming translucent and little green stars come out of her skin. Glimmer has no doubt that she’s redirecting the magic and giving it back to the planet, and she wonders idly how _great_ of a sorcerer Annette is to command the magic like that. To keep it inside her body when its nature is to come out and spread itself to give life.

Glimmer’s pretty sure only dark magic can do that. 

The room is illuminated suddenly with a white, very bright light and it wraps around Glimmer, drowning her in a warmth similar to the Bright Moon’s stone. Glimmer sees a little redheaded girl playing around with magic with her parents, and sees the girl growing up — from her first kiss to having her children to her teaching job as the only sorcerer of the group after her parents pass away, sees the trust everyone has on her and then Glimmer sees as all of that being taken away when the Horde attacks. She sees the girl now-turned-woman debating with herself until, victim to desperation, deciding that she needs to do what is right for her — for what she thinks is her people, even if it’s not, even if it means to sacrifice and betray everything she has been taught and knows — and Glimmer understands.

Glimmer understands because it’s the same mistake she’d made — a princess turning queen too soon, a woman turning leader too early. She hears Annette’s voice, two words said with absolute sincerity: “Thank you.”

The room returns to its darker light and Glimmer finds herself on the floor, blinking at where Annette’s form was. She sees Bow kneeling in front of her and wiping away her tears, even if she isn’t sure when she started crying in the first place. “Are you okay?”

Glimmer swallows and gives him a watery smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.” She grips Bow’s wrist and Bow presses a kiss to her forehead before murmuring against it: “We are talking about this as soon as we get home.”

“Can we stay like this? Just… for a little time?”

Bow smiles, sitting down in front of her and pulling her into a hug. Glimmer falls into it easily, letting out a shaky breath and hiding her face in Bow’s neck. Bow runs his hand through her spine in a soothing motion, pressing kisses to the side of her head from time to time.

She isn’t sure how long they stay like that, but it’s Drake the one who interrupts them when he makes a loud noise. Glimmer parts a little to look at him and offers her palm, which Drake licks curiously before looking up with bright blue eyes. Weren’t his eyes green, though? “I came here when I saw the white light.” Someone says and Glimmer sees the father of the girl from earlier. He’s talking from the door they just came in from. “Drake was always with Annette. He was her great companion and he’s the last dragon from here. Now that she’s gone… I think he would benefit from going with you.”

Bow smiles at the man before turning his gaze to Drake. “Welcome to the family, buddy.” 

* * *

To fix the planet, Glimmer, Adora and Entrapta stay with its citizens while the others return to Etheria to get Mermista and more materials. With the magic from the planet slowly returning, the trees are starting to look more alive again, even if the lack of water is still a problem. 

To sustain the people, Entrapta builds a machine to dig down where they had heard the water running underground, and they get the creatures from before — mouldwarps, apparently — to help them. Some trees start bearing fruit thanks to the returned magic — and for starters, it’s enough. Sometimes, Glimmer teaches a bit of magic to the children, laughing when the simplest spells don’t work.

Glimmer likes to think Annette would appreciate it.

It takes them a few weeks, but sure enough — and yes, thanks in a grand part to Mermista’s help — they manage to get the people back on their feet. Entrapta gives them a tracker pad similar but a lot simpler than Bow’s, so they’re able to communicate should something happen.

Before they know it, they are back in Bright Moon, and Glimmer has never missed her room more. “Ugh,” Glimmer groans, teleporting from place to place in pure happiness while Bow looks at her from the door. “I missed home.”

He laughs, setting down his bag with the outfits from their trip and allowing Drake to fly freely. “I can tell.”

“I know I promised you that we would look at the stars someday, but can that day be like, in a few weeks? I’m just exhausted of space.”

“You really don’t like it, do you?” Bow asks curiously before he starts climbing the stairs to her — their — bed where she’s sitting down. Glimmer’s room was reformed a little after the war ended — while it stills holds the basics, everything was changed for something a bit bigger, so as to accommodate Bow better. Glimmer added a desk where Bow can work as much as he likes, and more often than not, their room ends up with a lot of discarded attempts and semi-built projects. Glimmer has never minded the mess and it’s always a sight to see Bow very concentrated in working and creating.

“It’s not that I don’t like it. I just…” She hesitates and lies down on the bed, letting out a deep sigh. Bow sits next to her, looking at her with a raised brow. “I find it very lonely.”

The admission is out and Bow doesn’t reply at first. After taking off his armour and shoes, he touches Glimmer’s side, willing her to roll a little so he can lay down next to her. Glimmer complies to the silent command and Bow turns to face her, smiling at her even if his eyes are concerned. “I’m very proud of you for what you said to Annette,” Bow starts and Glimmer swallows, not sure which direction Bow is going to take from here, exactly. “You made mistakes and you hurt us, and that’s not going to change. And you ought to forgive yourself, Glimmer. I love you for who you are. I loved you before you lied to us, I loved you in-between and I still love you now.”

“I know.” Glimmer whispers, closing her eyes when she feels them tearing up and hiding her face in Bow’s chest. “I love you too. It’s just… sometimes it’s easier to hate myself for that and keep on going ahead than to face it.” Glimmer knows that it’s a reality and that she can’t run away from it — stars, it’s probably never going to leave her. In truth, Glimmer feels that as queen, she will have to do many things which will be hard to forgive. She can only hope that each time she fails, she will never make the mistake again. Her mother never prepared her for this, but even so, Glimmer can’t bring herself to really blame her — not when she misses her dearly. “I just wish Mom was here.”

Bow wraps his arms around her as Glimmer’s body, once again, starts shaking. “I know. It’s okay to miss her, baby. And you’ll probably never stop missing her because she’s your mom.”

“Sometimes I think I’m over it before I realise that I’m not. It all just happened so fast… I know it’s not an excuse for — well, everything. But I… I’m still very sorry, Bow.” 

“I know, and I forgave you long ago.” Bow kisses her forehead, murmuring against it: “I love you and I’m with you every step of the way.”

Glimmer kisses Bow’s chest before putting some distance between them and kissing him on the lips. Her hand rests on his cheek, rubbing circles while the other grips one of his hands. Glimmer feels Bow’s free hand on the back of her neck, and she leans into his touch like she always does.

Once they part, breathing a bit heavily on each other’s mouths, Glimmer winces as she feels a claw tugging on her hair. “Drake, no! Don’t do that.” Bow reprimands him and Glimmer bursts out laughing when Drake does the same to Bow, who pushes the dragon off them and glares at him. The dragon looks absolutely unfaced and Bow sighs. “Fine. The two of us will be every step of the way.” He rolls his eyes but there’s a fond smile on his face before looking at Drake curiously. “His eyes were green, right? Why are they blue now?”

Glimmer shrugs. “They changed after Annette returned the magic to the planet. Maybe it has something to do with that.”

“Interesting. Do you think they’ll turn pink if he stays in Bright Moon long enough?” Bow murmurs and Glimmer laughs before kissing his chin. Drake accommodates himself next to their tangled legs and closes his eyes, his wings covering his small form. They tickle Glimmer’s legs and she laughs softly. 

“I don’t know,” She replies finally, turning to look at Bow again. “I guess we’ll see.”

Bow smiles warmly at her. “At this point, maybe we’ll get a new pet in every space-trip we go to.”

Glimmer shakes her head, amused. “We will need to work out what Drake eats.”

“But we can do it later.”

“Oh? Have something in mind?” Glimmer teases him with a smile. Bow grins, looking down at her and licking his lips. Her eyes fall to them helplessly.

“I think I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> nO they don’t have sex w the dragon in their bed. they just make out or make drake leave.
> 
> anyways! in case you feel like screaming abt pretty much anything, find me on twitter!! @osamiya_
> 
> feel free to leave kudos and/or comments. thanks for reading and have a great day/night!


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